So last night just before I decided to call an end to yet another day, for the second consecutive night I picked up EDUCATING ESME and this time was unable to put it down. What an absolutely incredible read! A few weeks prior, as a class we got into a community cirle and were asked to state our thoughts on the MAT Program at Sage Graduate School and what we thought about its benefits and conversely the drawbacks. At the time, I had little of a genuine response in regards to my personal experiences thus far at SGS. I did however agree with a few of my colleagues that we needed more of an individualized effort to train effective teaching strategies towards our specific content areas. As it currently stands, we receive a great deal of content coverage, as well as a highly effective emphasis on educational aspects in the classroom but little in regards to a combiniation of the two!
Over the past two evenings, I have been encountered with one of the more beneficial readings I have thus encountered here at Sage. EDUCATING ESME is a treasure for soon to be educators and a resource that all graduate students across the education curriculum should read. I felt that it did a superb job in painting the picture of the pitfalls, triumphs, and all else in between of a first year teacher, and in this case at a rough and tough inner city school in Chicago.
Personally, for me this will be without a doubt a reference that I will take away from my time here at SGS. A tool, a resource, a motivator, and more so a reminder that I am not, nor will I ever be in this position solely by myself. While reading ESME, I found myself once again so very excited about the field that I have chosen to enter. I used to comment that I was sure that education is without a doubt why I was professionally put here on this planet but this has begun to spill out into all aspects of my life. Yes, professinally speaking, I know I will be an effective teacher...but I find myself more and more being a teacher, mentor, motivator, and all else in between to children and adolescents on a daily basis. EDUCATING ESME was a read that continued to build this massive amount of already existing excitement within me for my soon to be own, experiences in education!
